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Hello friends! About a month ago, my grandmother turned 75, so we trekked to North Carolina with three tiers of cake and frosting in a cooler and this is how it turned out:

It was a beach theme! Those are chocolate-molded seashells and numbers. The buttercream is spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg to compliment the apple and pumpkin layers, as well as to make it look like sand.

In your stand mixer, with the whisk attachment, beat the butter on high until it is lighter in color and fluffy. Add the heavy cream and continue to beat another minute or two. You should have a very light-colored, light-consistency product right now. (I have a theory that the heavy cream actually whips up a bit in this process as well, but I can’t scientifically verify that.)

Once you have that light and fluffy butter/cream mixture, move the speed to medium and start dumping in your sugar in small quantities. I usually open up the bag and put in maybe a half cup at a time, allowing it to mix completely before I add the next portion.

After you’ve incorporated all your sugar, add your vanilla extract or any other extract (hazelnut, almond, peppermint — adjust amount to taste). To make the spiced buttercream pictured above, add about 1 tsp. cinnamon and 3/4 tsp. nutmeg and mix to distribute.

Frost your cake and enjoy! This recipe will make quite a bit of frosting. Doubling it, I had maybe a cup leftover after doing all three tiers and touching it up. But who doesn’t love having extra frosting around?